Danio Rerio: A New Genomic Fishing Tool

Danio Rerio, also known as Zebrafish, is increasingly becoming an attractive model system in labs and research centers around the world for studying diseases ranging from Alzheimer's and diabetes to various forms of cancer. Seventy percent of the protein-coding genes in the human genome share similarity with the genes found in the Zebrafish genome. In addition, 84 percent of the known disease-causing genes in humans have a Zebrafish counterpart. This high genomics-similarity to humans coupled with the ease of genetic manipulation and optical transparency makes it a fantastic tool to understand the various signaling pathways responsible for a variety of disease phenotypes.